Inside Madeleine by Paula Bomer Read Free Book Online

tight Poison T-shirt moving in slow motion over his stomach, then the little one with acne who had the joint, his wiry body bobbling while his feet grounded him. They were laughing so slowly, and now Polly couldn’t hear them either, just see their mouths opening, their heads leaning back.
Maybe they weren’t making any noise
, thought Polly.
    “Let’s cruise the strip,” someone said. Polly wasn’t sure who said it, but she was glad she was able to hear. Somehow she managed to get in the back of the van. Someone had helpedher, had lifted one leg and then another, to make them crawl into the back of the van. She lay on her back and Breanna was next to her. The boys were in the front of the van; she couldn’t see them. Occasionally she heard them say something: “Turn on the radio.” “Give me a cigarette.” There was laughter, lots of laughter. From where Polly lay in the back of the van, she could see out the back window, a blur of red and yellow lights. Her feet were not floating anymore. She looked at her arm and tried to lift it, but couldn’t. What happened to her arm? She tried to turn her head to face Breanna, but she couldn’t do that either. Somewhere deep inside her was a core of fear and panic, but it was wrapped tightly with layer after layer of fog and bewilderment. She tried to say, “Breanna,” but nothing came out.
    She heard the boys up front. Her ears worked. Her eyes could see. Nothing else worked. She heard one of them close to her now, as if his mouth were right against her ear. He said, “You’ve done been dusted, little girl.”
    Then there was quiet for a while. She stared at the lights out the back of the van. Again, she tried to say, “Breanna.” It didn’t work. Then a voice from far away said, “To Eric’s house, motherfucker. It’ll be a lemon pussy night! Drive, motherfucker.”
    Polly kept her eyes on the window. She had no choice really. But it soothed her, too, the blurry red lights. Like this, staring out the window, mesmerized, she fell unconscious.
    When she came to, the van was backing up from her alley into a grassy part of the field. Polly wanted to say something.This is the field, she wanted to say. This is my alley, she wanted to say.
    Then she felt their hands on her. They were rolling her, rolling her out of the back of the van. She fell with a thud in the wet, cold grass. Breanna was next to her, but she wasn’t moving either. She felt Breanna’s cold arm against her own and it felt like the coldest thing in the world. She tried to move away from her friend, but she couldn’t move. Then the van lurched forward, and she watched the red taillights and listened to the crunch of the wheels on the black gravel of the alley.
    “
Meet me down the alley
,” the song came to her, and she saw her father singing it to her, his eyes wet with tears. “Dad,” she had asked, “can I go to the field to play kick the can?” This was before Jefferson, before her nipples burst, but after the chicken pox. “Sure thing, sweetheart,” he said, and then he sang to her, his arms outstretched toward her as she ran out the door to go play. He sang,
“Come on and meet me down the alley, one last time … Come on and meet me down the alley, we ain’t too young to die … Come on, meet me down the alley, to say goodbye.”
And she’d play and play, damp with salty sweat, running, hiding, kicking the can, relishing the scrape of metal on cement, her heart pumping fast, listening for those words, “
Olly Olly Oxen Free
!” She was down the alley, she was in her field. But it all felt wrong, because she couldn’t move, she couldn’t climb the boysenberry tree. The lights above her, the stars, pulled her eyes to them. They glittered just like the lights of the ferris wheel, like the coming and going lights of the cars snaking along the strip. She watched them, trying notto think how cold she was. She tried to turn her head to look at her friend, but she couldn’t. And so